Conductors' careers are made for the most part with 'Romantic' music. 'Classic' music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it.

My music is best understood by children and animals.

Mediocrity borrows, genius steals.

The principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending.

My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit.

What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators.

Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it.